Eli: Improving vocabulary

For probably almost a year now, one of my biggest complaints with Eli has been his speaking or lack thereof. But finally, I can report that he is really improving on his speech. Just past the 2 year mark, Eli has been communicating verbally a little more and sometimes repeating after what we say, which is a big relief to me that it's just a matter of time when he can actually speak.

And then I will want him to shut up.

I wrote up a list of Eli's words going into the 2 year checkup. He had a list of about 20 words and 10 signs. After writing down his words I realized: Eli has no vocabulary. All of his words were expressions: hi, bye, whoa, yah, yay, uh-oh. He doesn't say car or truck or banana or any of a gazillion objects that are a part of his world every day. Strange, I thought. I concluded that for Eli, speech is a matter of necessity. Why say the word "car" when I can just point at it and grunt? Maybe it was our fault for responding to grunts and not reinforcing vocabulary more. But for a second child, I was just happy he was able to communicate something by pointing and grunting.

The breakthrough in speech started when he finally added "Mommy" to his vocabulary or more accurately, "Mommy?" And it's funny, you think it's only parents that mix up the names of their kids, but our kids do it. Even Eli. He corrects himself as fast as he says it: "Mommy? Daddy?"

His most commonly used phrase that I don't know what it is but he, in his own universe, obviously does is: "Go deh!" Sometimes it means "Go there" like when you're holding him and he wants to steer you like he's the captain and you're the lowly deck hand spinning the steering wheel. But sometimes he'll just point at a thing and say "go deh!" when he wants it. It's his multi-purpose point-and-shoot phrase.

But most importantly to me is that he has finally started to repeat after us. Sometimes. But sometimes is better than never, which made me nervous that there was something about his language acquisition that wasn't clicking. But he repeated and added "cold" and "rubbie" (rubbing his tummy) and other random words to his vocab. And he's repeated and never used some other random vocabulary words too.

After he started repeating some words, it became apparent to me that his not speaking is a matter of the will. Since sometimes he repeats when I say, "Eli, can you say __?", then when he doesn't repeat, I can almost see in his eyes that he doesn't want to. A few times I tried some of my friend's speech therapy guidelines that she got for her kid, like, don't give him what he wants until he says what he wants (or something close to it). I tried that on easy things that I know he knows like "milk" and he just looked at me like I'm crazy. He didn't even try to sign it, he just kept pointing and yelping for it and of course eventually crying. I'm glad Dr. Moore kind of laughed at the advice, at least for our situation. Getting into a battle of the wills is fruitless and frustrating.

Sometimes Eli's just plain confused, or I'd rather think he's confused rather than stubborn. One time he wanted crackers that were sitting on the table. He points and goes "eh!" but I said, "Can you say 'cracker'?" Then he signs "please" and I respond, "That's good manners but can you say the word 'cracker'?" Then he signs "thank you" and I respond, "Very nice. But say it with your mouth [I point to my mouth]: 'crack-er'." And he points to his mouth thinking that's the sign for "cracker". And every cracker he wanted after that, he pointed to his mouth and to this day if he sees a cracker (I think specifically a saltine), he points to his mouth.

And that, my friends, is the downside of introducing sign language to your kid. Also, since Eli knows the signs for "please", "thank you", "milk", "water" and "music", he will NOT say those verbally (which Dr. Moore concurred that for Eli, only teach the signs that are absolutely necessary). Which now can sometimes be a problem because Eli is learning to interact more with others, especially other kids, and as he's learning to take turns, if I tell him to say please or thank you, he signs it and I end up having to explain to the other kid or mom that he signed it. It's a good lesson in diversity I suppose but it's getting to be tiring. Just say the words, child. I know you know them.

But alas, Eli can be a chatty little fellow. He's not shy on the phone. He leaves my mom speechless sometimes because he babbles and says things with confidence. And no one knows what he's saying. And it's a cute phase he's in, still a baby when it comes to speech, but soaking up all this knowledge around him like a sponge.

Everything but speech, that is!